Former FBI Director James Comey will on June 8 testify before congressional investigators probing possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Mr Comey, who was fired by Donald Trump last month as he was overseeing an FBI investigation into the issue, will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The committee, which is chaired by Richard Burr, said he will appear in an open session on Capitol Hill, at 10am.
Even in this times of times of intense political excitement, there can be few other events that have generated such anticipation since Mr Trump assumed the presidency.
Mr Comey, has the power if to not sink the Trump administration, then to at least badly damage it.
He was fired amid claims that Mr Trump was growing increasingly concerned with the route the FBI investigation was taking.
Mr Trump even told an NBC interviewer: “When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said ‘you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won’.”
The decision to fire Mr Comey, who had been appointed to a ten-year term three-and-a-half years ago by Barack Obama, was hugely controversial and triggered much angst.
It was later reported that Mr Trump had both asked Mr Comey to declare his loyalty to him, and suggest that he drop the probe into his former national security advisor Michael Flynn.
Mr Flynn, a former general, was fired by Mr Trump after it emerged he had lied about his contact with Russian officials.
Mr Comey has reportedly spoken private with Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, the man now heading the federal probe, to work out the parameters for his testimony to ensure there are no legal entanglements as a result of his public account.
He is unlikely to be in a position to discuss in any detail the FBI’s ongoing investigation.
However, CNN said he does appear eager to discuss his interactions with Mr Trump before his firing, which have now spurred allegations that the president may have tried to obstruct the investigation.
